Real Madrid win Champions League, USWNT win Emma Hayes debut, and more: Monday Freedom Kicks
Happy Monday, everyone. It was a fun weekend of soccer for me, especially on Saturday. More importantly, Saturday marked the start of Pride Month, which we support fervently around here. Happy Pride to everyone, and may we all continue to do the work to become better allies for our LGBTQIA+ family, friends, and our fellow neighbors.
Halamadrid!! Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund 2-0 to win their 15th UEFA Champions League. And, at some point this week, they’re expected to sign Kylian Mbappé. I need that Comunicado Oficial first, but I love all of this.
June 2024 USWNT Friendlies – USA 4-0 Republic of Korea: A good start for Emma Hayes (SSFC)
The Emma Hayes era got off to a great start, with braces from Mallory Swanson and Tierna Davidson. The team heads to Minnesota for their 2nd friendly against South Korea tomorrow.
Recap: D.C. United secure gritty 2-2 draw against Toronto FC after late-game drama (DP)
What a wild ending to this match. The Black-and-Red come back to draw Toronto FC and almost had the winner. Christian Benteke left this match early due to injury, and hopefully it’s not serious.
This was a wild tweet out of context. But LeBron James is clearly a fan of Robby Dambrot:
Robby Dambrot’s dad is Keith Dambrot, who just retired from his legendary basketball coaching career. That career included coaching LeBron for a couple years when he was in high school. Next step: get LeBron to attend a match. Loudoun United beat FC Tulsa 3-0.
Pachuca beats Columbus Crew to win Concacaf Champions Cup (ESPN)
Columbus just didn’t have it in them, as Pachuca dominates them at home 3-0 to win the Concacaf Champions Cup and a place in next summer’s FIFA Club World Cup.
Venezia are third team promoted to Serie A in 2023-24 (Football Italia)
Venezia will be back in Serie A after winning their promotion playoff.
Leganés, owned by former Astros GM Luhnow, promoted to LaLiga (ESPN)
Shoutout to Leganés, who will be back in the Spanish top flight after winning LaLiga Segunda. Viva Los Pepineros! Long live the Cucumbers!
‘This shirt is my skin,’ José Mourinho tells Fenerbahce fans at his unveiling (The Guardian)
Jose Mourinho will take over at Fenerbache, his first time outside of the big 5 European leagues since he coached Porto.
The Greenland clause: how FIFA are closing the door on new members (Sporting Intelligence)
With Greenland applying to join Concacaf, here’s a deep dive on how they got to this point and why FIFA and UEFA are leading the charge to keep non-UN independent nations out, including Greenland.
USA Soccercast, Episode 134: André Carlisle helps us preview the Emma Hayes era (SSFC)
Shouts to André for coming on my podcast to help me preview what a Emma Hayes-run USWNT could look like. Give it a listen!!
Enjoy the week!
Congratulations to Real Madrid for making this boring! And I hope they enjoy their new world class albatross, I mean, player signing! May he track back and be as much of a champions league winner as he’s been in the last several years.
Sorry, that was too subtle, fuck them both.
LOL. Dortmund really threw some haymakers, but, as they seemed to do all year, Real Madrid just gets it done later more often than sooner…
It will be interesting to see if Alex Morgan gets a runout for the second friendly, but based on the first game and the insane depth, she may be done. I would hope, if Alex Morgan doesn’t make the 18 for Paris, that Lynn Williams makes it back. She’s so effective, powerful, and versatile.
KDP and Klich Buzzard Points knot Bernardeschi 2-2. The tally to date:
Buzzard Points (home goals): Benteke (6, incl. pk); Bartlett, Dajome, Klich (pk), Ku-DiPietro, McVey, Murrell, Pirani, Santos , Stroud
Talones (home assists): Herrera, Klich, Santos, Stroud (2); Antley, Benteke, Birnbaum
Taloncitos (drew home pk): Stroud, Tubbs
It’s going to be interesting to see what insights we can get from the US-ROK match here, how the scheme/approach differs in the 2nd match, and then in the Olympics. My understanding is that Hayes told the primary attackers she wanted more interplay, changing of positions and roles, not as static positionally and we saw that this game.
Do you want Sophia Smith as your #9? She’s impressive in NWSL but I think internationally it may be a different story–you’re giving up a lot of aerial competitiveness to start her at the #9 spot.
And I too admire Lynn Williams but I think she’s not going to be a consideration. Effectively she and Rodman are in the same role: speedy goal scorer who can play outside and is so much more than an attacker. I don’t see her winning a spot as a #9. And on a small roster, I don’t see her being kept as a sub for what is effectively the Rodman role on the frontline.
Depends on how many spots for forwards there are. With only 18 players, there may be four seats on the plane, and Swanson, Smith, Rodman, and Shaw are extremely elite. However, we’re playing a 3-4-3, so that’s only one sub for the starters.
If there are five spots up there, Williams is my call up.
At the Madrid Sevens this past weekend the US Men’s team kept themselves up in the HSBC 7s series in the core team qualification matches. They won their qualification pool defeating Germany 40-19, Uruguay 29-14, and Canada 14-7 on the way. This led to them unfortunately getting the short straw by getting seeded against Samoa (lost to Kenya 19-12, lost to Chili 21-19, and lost to Spain 31-0) in the Challenger Series Playoff round. The US used a dominant first half to cruise to a 40-19 victory (note 7s rugby is played in 2 7 minute halves plus extra time). For the game timeline of USA vs Samoa https://www.svns.com/en/fixtures-and-results/madrid/matches?matchId=c7f02493-670e-4ec0-ae43-bd00baec060f&tab=timeline.
The US Men have been considered a Core Team playing in the Top flight of International Men’s 7s since the 2008-2009 series.
The US Men and Women 7s are both qualified for the Olympics in Paris this summer. The Women by virtue of finishing in the top 4 of the 2022-2023 season and the Men because they won the Rugby Americas North Qualifying tournament last August.
Atlanta fired Gonzalo Pineda. It didn’t come directly after playing DC, ala “The Chris Armas,” but DC did beat Atlanta at home to help drive them to these depths. And the margin of loss in Pineda’s last game came from an own goal by former DC man Derrick Williams.
I’m feeling good knowing that our coach is not going to get fired this year.
I’m gonna have to ask you to not jinx this, please…
I don’t think Atlanta’s roster is as good as they think it is. As much as Pineda had them going nowhere, they’ve been hoping that a few shiny pieces and some working class players would carry them back to the Cup. I don’t have a sense of what their identity is – something we ought to know pretty well.
It’s official:
Mbappe to Miami….
Oops, my Garber-based AI did that, Real Madrid….
Jeahze officially released.
https://x.com/dcunited/status/1797659944243605522
Well, at least it was all polite and stuff. I hope the Austrian coming in is solid. (I would imagine so, judging by an upgrade in the GM area)
On the Columbus-Pachuca result, Columbus was very vehement not to use this as an excuse. But 20 members of their party came down with a bad stomach virus 2 days before the game. Difficulty eating, continuous diarrhea. One of the Columbus players said he hadn’t been able to eat for the 48 hours prior to the game. Obviously, you consume a lot of electrolytes. But most of the players were just off–Columbus didn’t look like Columbus, very unsteady in defense, 1-2 steps slow. Nancy was quick to congratulate Pachuca and say all of their goals were deserved.
A Pepinero is not a “cucumber.” It would be someone who farms or a merchant who sells cucumbers. Or, in this case, fans of the team, or the team itself, in a region famous for the vegetable..